Enough with the pontificating: say clearly, and without evasion, what you expect will happen if your policies are imposed tomorrow.

If you can't or won't do that, it's really unacceptable for you to be demanding that of people.

If you reduce the size of the public sector it will reduce cost to do business & live in this country. This makes us more competitive to sell goods & services abroad leading to more jobs. Obviously you can't slash spending overnight which is why needs to be gradual.

This is preferable to the government increasing borrowing or increasing taxes further so can spending the money on made up jobs.

Deputy Mathews did assert that there was potentially another €60bn that would be required in the Irish banking system – that’s on top of the €64bn direct bail-out of the banks and the €5.6bn of state-aid paid by NAMA to the banks for the acquisition of loans.

Krugman was speaking in obvious jest, it is clear from the context (he was and remains a lifelong critic and opponent of housing bubbles).

But you're falsely portraying what is clearly a humourous quip as a serious proposal. I'll let others judge if this reflects well on the veracity your pro-austerity statements.

Really?
"To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble. Judging by Mr. Greenspan's remarkably cheerful recent testimony, he still thinks he can pull that off. But the Fed chairman's crystal ball has been cloudy lately; remember how he urged Congress to cut taxes to head off the risk of excessive budget surpluses? And a sober look at recent data is not encouraging.
"Dubya's Double Dip?", The New York Times, 2 August 2002"Paul Krugman - Wikiquote

Now that may seem like a quip or a joke or it may not, but he later clarified:

Meanwhile, economic policy should encourage other spending to offset the temporary slump in business investment. Low interest rates, which promote spending on housing and other durable goods, are the main answer. But it seems inevitable that there will also be a fiscal stimulus package"

But housing, which is highly sensitive to interest rates, could help lead a recovery.... But there has been a peculiar disconnect between Fed policy and the financial variables that affect housing and trade. Housing demand depends on long-term rather than short-term interest rates -- and though the Fed has cut short rates from 6.5 to 3.75 percent since the beginning of the year, the 10-year rate is slightly higher than it was on Jan. 1.... Sooner or later, of course, investors will realize that 2001 isn't 1998. When they do, mortgage rates and the dollar will come way down, and the conditions for a recovery led by housing and exports will be in place.

I've always favored the let-bygones-be-bygones view over the crime-and-punishment view. That is, I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly -- that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum. That was why I, like many others, was frustrated at the smallish cut at the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting: I was pretty sure that Alan Greenspan had the tools to prevent a disastrous recession, but worried that he might be getting behind the curve.

Basically, without demand, capitalism collapses. It needs for people with money to be buying stuff.

Trouble is, the private sector doesn't work steadily, instead, it's spending is clumped together instead of spread out evenly through time. Hence during the tiger period it was spending far too much for the system to take, and after 2007 it's been spending far too little to prevent the system falling in on itself.

That's where deficit spending comes in. When you're in the private sector bust phase of the cycle, capitalism requires high deficit spending by the government in order to plug the gap left by the private sector's implosion.

Austerity, simply put, is when ideology interferes with the necessary deficit spending which is needed if the capitalist system of any given nation is to survive, during a bust period.

By failing to introduce demand into the economy, the EU has needlessly turned a bust into a very serious slump which threatens the short-term survival of the system.

And how high does deficit spending need to be before it stops being austere?

No vague generalities please, exact percentages would be good, in keeping with the OP.

I'm new to this site, so first of all hello!
I've been reading most of the posts about this and I'll be honest I'm not really up to date with all that is going on. It's been a while since I've had the chance to follow a passion of mine. Anyway I'm only young so please go easy on me :/
I keep hearing this "idea" of hit the rich for higher taxes... why should they be hit? If you have worked your butt off for most of your life and can now live comfortably - fair play! It's the outrageous spending of the government and the fraudulent claimers of benefit that needs to be looked into! That's the problem with all this recession. Not one person in the government have stopped and thought "hey you know what, lets stop wasting money on rubbish and see what happens", or "Let's employ people that are on the dole to work for the same amount of money and clean up the streets / get them to volunteer". So many people out there doing nothing, give them something to do! Stop kids coming out of school and onto the dole... send them back to school. Higher the education system - teach children the value of money in school. There is so many things being taxed at the moment, silly things some of them. won't be long before we are taxed for breathing! Clear out the Dail members, I may come across as harsh but they are idiots. Why can't there be people who genuinely want to do good for their country in charge? why are they paid so much? why can't they practice what they preach and use Irish companies, use public transport etc.
Our country is being run by idiots! (I know - obvious) I am sick of their stupid rules, laws and taxes. They lower peoples income and higher the price of living - where is the sense in that? I personally don't think austerity will work from what I have read / heard. I have been on the receiving end of a dole payment. My family situation at the moment is no better than what we were on the dole, but we are repaying our taxes more than once by now. Yes, there are some things that are actually there to help, but they are only there to cover up for the stupid stuff that has to be paid out. Is it really not as easy as STOP spending money on ridiculous things? Like on a previous thread about 2.5m being spent on a website that doesn't even cater to every culture. There is so much more I could rant about, but it would probably take forever to write!
Thanks for reading

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